Some by Fire

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘What time did you leave him?’ I asked.

  ‘About eight o’clock. I had a workout in the gym and came home.’

  ‘You didn’t stay in your room overnight?’

  ‘No, Inspector, I prefer my own bed.’ He gave a little smile and I thought of the delightful Francesca.

  After a long silence I said: ‘Did you see anything of a dark girl who was staying in the room next to yours? She’s called Danielle LaPetite.’

  He heaved a giant sigh, leant heavily on the table between us and drummed his fingertips on the top of his head. It was a gesture he’d seen on How to be a Psychologist videos, when the patient runs out of patience and is considering whether to slot the doctor. He’d obviously practised it. ‘I might as well tell you,’ he said, looking up at me, his face a study of embarrassed guilt. ‘You’ll find out, one way or another.’ I sat back and waited for the revelation.

  ‘Danielle is JJ’s mistress,’ he began. ‘She’s a dancer with a Manchester theatre group called Zambesi. I met her off the eighteen fifty-two train and took her to the hotel. JJ trusts me, you see. We had a drink in the cocktail lounge, and I came home.’

  ‘Did you find Danielle for Fox?’ I asked, avoiding the word procure.

  ‘I introduced them, if that’s what you mean,’ he replied, almost offended.

  ‘Was she a student of yours?’

  ‘What if she had been, Inspector? She was the same as lots of others like her; expectations way above their intellects. Thick as two short planks and wanted to be a doctor. She’s a good dancer and good in bed; I encouraged her to develop what talents she possessed. JJ pays her a thousand pounds a night and she enjoys her work. Where else could she earn money like that?’

  ‘And what was your cut?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t take a penny off her. JJ paid me well, extremely well, and…’ He shrugged and smiled.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Like I said, she was a good dancer and good in bed, and nobody misses a coconut off a fruit stall, do they? JJ liked her to put on a show for him and I was the warm-up act. I didn’t need any money from him. Shagging the boss’s ladyfriend just before he does has a certain appeal all of its own, don’t you think, Inspector?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said.

  Going home it was the M6, M61 and M62 all the way and I never dropped under ninety. If a traffic car had followed me I’d have given him the secret signal that says: ‘I’m a cop in a hurry,’ and he’d have dropped back. You just switch your hazard lights on for three flashes and dab your brakes, that’s all. Try it some time. The local chippie opens at teatime on Wednesdays, so I had them again. They were all right, but nowhere as good as the ones Shirley had cooked for us. By six o’clock I’d washed my plate, made a pot of tea and the full evening stretched before me.

  I laid a blank piece of hardboard on the drive and started flicking blue enamel on it, à la Jackson Pollock. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and time-consuming. It doesn’t start to work until the entire field is thickly covered in splashes and squiggles and spots and dribbles. This would give the exhibition judges something to think about, and might even make the Gazette, I’d have to think of a name for it, and for its partner, when I’d finished the pair of them. I reached for my tea and found it had gone cold.

  I was taking the lid off the red when a sound behind me caused me to turn. Young Daniel, Dave’s son, was freewheeling his mountain bike through my gateway, closely followed by his dad on a lady’s pink model with a basket on the handlebars. Dave was wearing a Heart Appeal T-shirt and jogging bottoms.

  ‘Hi, Charlie,’ Daniel greeted me. ‘Whatya doing?’ He saw the painting and went: ‘Wow! It’s fantastic!’

  Dave dismounted, saying: ‘It’s Uncle Charlie to you, young man,’ for the thousandth time, followed by: ‘Good God, it looks like a bag of maggots.’

  I knocked the lid back into place and stretched upright, my vertebrae creaking in protest. ‘Visitors!’ I exclaimed. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. Let’s have a drink.’

  ‘Can I have a go on your computer, please, Uncle Charlie?’ Daniel asked. ‘I think Dad wants to talk cop talk.’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘C’mon, I’ll set you up.’ I left him with a glass of LA lager and lime, zapping aliens, and carried two cans of real beer and two glasses out into the garden, where Dave had made himself comfortable on the seat.

  The cans went psssss! as we broke the seals. Dave said: ‘It’s just two small messages. First of all Les Isles rang to say that Danielle LaPetite is a torn from Salford, and she hasn’t turned up yet. Aged twenty-two, several convictions for soliciting. But the big news is from Tregellis. He rang just before five to say that Melissa is on her way, with her boyfriend. They arrive in Manchester at nine a.m. tomorrow, and can you arrange for someone to meet them?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘It’s all coming together.’ I looked at my watch. ‘I ought to ring Tregellis,’ I said, ‘tell him about today.’

  ‘He said to tell you not to bother,’ Dave replied. ‘He’s out tonight; it’ll do in the morning.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dave took a long sip, held the glass to the light and turned it in his fingers. A blackbird landed on the fence, looked affronted by our presence in his garden and took off again. High above us a jumbo jet filled with holidaymakers did a course-correction, leaving a bent trail across the sky. The sun glinted under its wing as it levelled out.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Dave said.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  He shuffled and crossed his ankles. ‘You remember Peter Mark Handley?’

  ‘The games master who touched up little girls?’

  ‘He did more than touch them up, but not any more. He’s dead. Monday night he jumped off Scammonden bridge.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said.

  ‘He didn’t leave a note or anything. He should have appeared before the magistrates that morning, but he didn’t. They issued a warrant. He wasn’t identified until this afternoon.’

  ‘We drove him to that,’ I said. ‘Or I did. And I caused Fox’s death, too. I put pressure on him and Kingston. Kingston probably killed him to silence him, thanks to me. Judge, jury and executioner, all in one. Sometimes I hate this job, Dave. When we’re old, do you think we’ll be able to sleep at nights?’

  ‘You’re talking soft,’ he replied. ‘Handley was a pervert and Fox a monster. We’ll never know how evil he was. They were both all right when they were picking the fruits, but when it came to paying the bill they didn’t like it. We’re the law, Charlie. We just catch them. If they can’t hack it, it’s their fault. What is it they say? “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”’

  ‘“If you deserve it, serve it.” Handley’s wife didn’t deserve it. She seemed a pleasant enough person, and loyal to him. Now she’s a widow.’

  ‘And how many little girls will never trust a man again? How many of them has he left damaged? Don’t waste your regrets on either of them, Charlie, save them for more deserving causes. God knows, there’s plenty.’

  I fetched two more beers and left another LA with Daniel. He was playing Battle Chess against the computer. The sun had fallen behind next door’s roof but it was still a warm evening. A flock of swallows were diving and swirling like tea leaves used to, before they invented teabags. I topped up both our glasses from one can. The first vapour trail had been dispersed by the Jetstream, but another plane was following the same course, pumping millions of cubic feet of burnt hydrocarbons into the ozone layer. Seven miles above us two or three hundred rat-tempered passengers were wrestling with seat backs and folding tables, or standing in embarrassed queues for the toilets.

  Bring back airships, that’s my opinion.

  Dave took a sip, sighed, and balanced his glass on the uneven top of the wall round my little rockery. He sat on his hands and kicked his feet up and down. ‘You remember when we were going to Bridlington?’ he said, when he was good and ready.
/>
  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Remember what we were talking about.’

  ‘Percy Shaw?’

  ‘After that.’

  ‘Rhubarb crumble?’

  ‘You don’t make it easy for me, do you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dave,’ I said, ‘but I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

  ‘Nigel asked why I hadn’t made sergeant.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yes, that. Have you ever wondered why?’

  ‘Once or twice, but not lately. You could have walked it if you’d wanted. With a bit of effort you could have made inspector, and you’d have been a good one. I just assumed that you were happy as a DC and didn’t want to spoil things. You had a family to consider. There’s plenty of others feel the same way.’

  ‘I am happy, but there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘Is there?’ I wasn’t going to ask. He’d tell me, if that was what he was leading to.

  ‘I had a revelation.’

  ‘A revelation? You found God?’

  ‘No, I found my limitations. That day, at the fire.’

  ‘Leopold Avenue?’

  ‘That’s right. When I saw her at the window, little Jasmine Turnbull, I knew I had no chance of saving her. But the alternative was worse. Just standing there, watching, until the fire or the smoke got her. I could never have lived with myself if I hadn’t tried. Halfway up that first staircase I was in trouble. I was going to grab one more breath and press on, but you tackled me and dragged me out. I’d never have made it; I knew that. For a while, I wondered if you did what you did because you hadn’t the bottle to go after her. But not for long. I soon realised that if it had been the other way round, if I’d been the sergeant and you the PC, there’d have been ten deaths in that fire, not eight. And we’d have missed all this.’ He waved a hand at the garden. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘I suppose you could say I’m not cut out for authority.’

  ‘Now you’re talking soft,’ I said. ‘How many times has a situation like that risen since then? None.’

  ‘But it might, tomorrow.’

  ‘And you’d do what was necessary.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now.’

  I shared the fourth can between us. ‘There’s more in the fridge…’ I hinted.

  ‘Better not. What’s the limit for riding a bike while in charge of a minor?’

  ‘No idea. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  It was good beer. The froth clung to the side of the glass, all the way down. That’s how you tell a good pint. It’s nothing to do with the taste. The widget was the greatest scientific breakthrough since Archimedes invented the overflow.

  ‘I saw the pictures,’ I said.

  Dave licked the froth off his top lip and said: ‘What pictures?’

  ‘The ones in Kingston’s loo, that you didn’t want me to see.’

  ‘Oh, those pictures.’

  ‘That’s right. By Mrs Holmes. She knew him better than she pretended, don’t you think?’

  ‘You can’t say that. They might have been a Christmas present or anything. Maybe Melissa bought them off her and gave them to him. There’s a thousand possible explanations.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I admitted, but I knew different. It had all started at that party to watch the Apollo 13 mission on television. Kingston had been awful to Melissa, Janet had told us, and chased another girl. She’d been that other girl, as sure as Satan made female Morris dancers. Why should Melissa have all the fun? she’d thought, and Melissa had reacted by taking a tilt at Mo, which was what Kingston had intended all along. I’d been to a few parties like that myself. Then it was back to the bedsit and the Leonard Cohen records.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ Dave said. ‘She was young. We all make mistakes.’

  Daniel came out of the open doorway, saying: ‘I’ve logged off, Uncle Charlie. Thanks for letting me play on it. We ought to be off, Dad, before it gets dark.’

  ‘Kids,’ Dave muttered to me, standing up. ‘Who’d have ’em?’

  I watched them pedal away in an impromptu race, and thought: I would.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thursday morning Manchester airport told me that Delta flight number DL064 from Atlanta was delayed two hours, which suited me just fine. I had long sessions on the phone with Les Isles and Tregellis, and a progress meeting with Mr Wood. I was working for three bosses and it was hard to juggle things so everyone was equally informed and no feelings were hurt. Fortunately, Tregellis was a long way away, Les trusted me and regarded me as an extension of his team, and Gilbert gave me a free hand, so I was able to do what I wanted.

  One of our motorcyclists was waiting for me when I returned from Gilbert’s office. He was nursing two videos. ‘Ah, well done,’ I said as I took them from him.

  ‘My pleasure, sir,’ he replied with a grin.

  ‘Nice little ride, was it?’

  ‘Smashing.’ His helmet and leathers were shimmering with the carcasses of dead flies.

  ‘Well, take it steady, and thanks.’

  The old idea of an identity parade, with the suspect lined up alongside seven other short, bald-headed men, is rapidly fading. They were always a pain to organise and expensive in time and money. Video film and links are taking over. We can use recordings of the suspect, mixed in with images of similar-looking characters off the files, and let the victim examine them at his or her leisure. They don’t even have to be in the same city. The security cameras in Kendal nick had captured Kingston’s likeness on tape during his two visits, helped by a little careful manipulating of his position. The ID team had produced a video for me showing several stills of him, together with an assortment of similarly built policemen in civvies, visiting solicitors, and various friends, relatives and villains. I posted one straight off to Tregellis, via the internal mail, and watched the other in the main office. It was good.

  I’d intended to take Annette with me to Manchester because I wanted her to be our contact with Melissa and her boyfriend, but Gilbert had asked her to produce some figures for a survey about overtime and sick leave. The Home Secretary had been given warning of a question he was about to be asked in Parliament, so everything had to stop until we had an answer. The sun was still shining, but the temperature had dropped by quite a bit. It was bright and pleasant, rather than oppressive. I gave myself plenty of time and stopped for a chicken burger at the services. As usual, when I used the loo I found that someone with pubic alopecia had beaten me to it.

  I was still early. I called in at the Immigration office and they confirmed that Melissa was on the flight, which was a pleasant surprise. Piers had told me that she didn’t seem to realise that once she had left the USA it was unlikely that they’d let her back in. He hadn’t tipped her off about this small point and we were looking forward to breaking it to her after she’d given us what she wanted.

  I wandered up to the spectator’s gallery to watch the big jets taking off, and caught myself humming ‘In the Early Morning Rain’. There’s a shop up there that sells aviation magazines, spotters’ guides and plastic models of famous crashes. Hanging in a corner was a sheepskin flying jacket, circa WWII, marked down from £300 to £199. Wow! I thought, this’ll work wonders for my image. I’d wear it to the office tomorrow, regardless of the weather.

  But the sleeves were miles too short. The rest of it fitted, but I held my arms forward to demonstrate the problem and exchanged disappointed smiles with the sales lady. I went back to Arrivals and stood with the blank-faced straggle of people waiting for flight DL064. Shifty-looking taxi drivers held boards under their arms with scrawled names across them, and a well-dressed elderly man in a chauffeur’s cap stood patiently to attention. Once he’d been the terror of the parade ground, and now he was someone’s lackey. That’d be me soon, I thought. The rest were bleary-eyed sons-in-law or parents, come to pick up their loved ones after yet another holiday of a lifetime.

  I’d have recognised her at half a mile, but she still
took my breath away. I stepped forward in front of them, and the immigration official shadowing them gave me a nod and peeled off. ‘Miss Youngman?’ I said.

  ‘The former Miss Youngman,’ she said, almost smiling. ‘Now I’m Mrs Slade. Meet my husband of twenty-four hours, Jade Slade.’

  ‘How ya doin’?’ he said.

  ‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘DI Priest.’ Shit fuck bugger, I thought. She’s done us.

  The extravagances of the seventies had been toned down, and of course, our tastes have developed over the years. Her hair was red again, cropped short and carelessly styled, but nothing that you wouldn’t see any day in any small town. She wore a nose ring and extravagant eye make-up – not heavy lashes and shadow, but paint and speckles all around them – with black lipstick. Underneath the muck was one of those faces that can launch a young girl to fame and fortune or blight her life with a string of wrong men because the decent ones don’t think they stand a chance. She was beautiful, and ageing well, and I could understand anybody falling for her. Nancy Spungeon had become Zandra Rhodes.

  He was something else. Short, pot-bellied, with one of those hillbilly beards that looks as if it’s just been shampooed. He wore faded denims held up by a broad belt heavily inlaid with silver and turquoise. She was in a brown leather suit. I led them to my car and told them about the Station Hotel, in Heckley, where we’d booked them a room for the week.